An Imprint Of A Lost, Beloved Soul
by Hiddlesybatched
Summary: Sequel of sorts to The Curious Case of Miss Molly Hooper (I'd advise you to read it), not sure how it is going to pan out, but I am fairly certain no smut. Rated M for mature themes and violence. Molly is dead, and Sherlock can't help but see her everywhere, kind of S3 compliant.
1. Loss Is A Knife, Felt Always

So this is just a little continuation of Curious Case (if you haven't read it, it doesn't matter too much, it just would help to explain why he is suddenly OOC) cause I couldn't let go of the story completely, but couldn't drag Curious Case out down a different alley way. Thanks for reading!

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><p>Torture.<p>

Pain lanced through his abdomen, fire circling his head as he thrashed against invisible bonds, straining against non-existent restraints.

Her voice called to him.

He whimpered in his sleep, hands reaching for the comfort of her slight frame in his arms, landing on a plump, healthy body in the bed where she had lain.

He woke up.

The acute pain of loss stabbed through his heart as he remembered she was gone.

The soft, warm body beside him was not the body of the woman he loved. No, _she_ was laying cold in a box, decomposing at a steady rate, maggots almost certainly having had eaten what little flesh was left on her.

The woman beside him stirred, interrupting his mournful thoughts.

"You know, if you'd let her, she'd be good for you." _Her_ soft voice teased him, _her_ big dark eyes, that the woman who lay beside him's eyes so resembled, twinkling at him mirthfully as she smiled.

_She_ was beautiful.

_She _stood in the corner of the darkened room.

Clothed in her usual lab coat, hair pulled back severely into her ponytail again, he feasted on the sight of her even as he berated himself for indulging in such weakness.

His entire body _yearned_ for her.

He carefully escaped the bedroom, making his way to the bathroom to splash some cold water onto his face, to wake him up from this waking nightmare.

_She _called out to him as he went, her ghostly form following him silently, eerily, a soft glow seeming to envelop her as she moved gracefully. Far more gracefully than she ever had in life.

"Sherlock, please, don't push me away. You know that your mind palace has created me for a reason." Her voice seemed loud in the echoing chambers of his mind, for he knew that only he could hear her.

Only he could _ever_ hear her.

"I can't. You can't keep being here..." His voice, low and hurting, broke the silence that pressed upon him, the self imposed silence that he enforced unless alone or on a case. The pain he had kept trapped inside for months leaked into his voice, finally finding a weak point in his mental defences and pouring out in a torrential stream of hurt, loneliness, loss and abandonment.

He wished she was there.

He wished more than anything to be with her.

Death seemed almost a pleasant concept now, an end to the monotony of his day to day life, something to make his pitiful existence mean something.

They'd say he died of a broken heart.

They'd be right.

He had considered drugs, to numb the constant, aching pain of her loss, but she had come to him, in his palace, slapping him like she had so many months ago. He hadn't touched the drugs.

The pain served as a reminder, kept his mind sharp and focussed. Cases took a quarter of the time now, even the eights or nines.

He wished he could have told her that he loves her.

_I know you do, silly. I wouldn't want you rushing off on a bloody suicide mission though!_

_She_ rested her hand on his shoulder intangibly, so he almost thought he would feel her soft warmth seep into him, but all around him swirled instead the cold night breeze that signalled his despairing solitude.

"I don't want to live like this. Everything is both sharp and dull, painful and coma inducing, I feel as though I am already dead. I need you, Molly!" He choked back a small sob, forcing his composure to return.

Small, feminine hands landed on his shoulders, rubbing circles in a bid to be soothing. He stiffened instantly. Forced a smile onto his face and tried to be softer, to hide the pain.

"Go back to sleep, Janine. I have a case that's puzzling me, so I'd only keep you awake if I went back to bed." He shrugged her hands off, looking apologetic in the face of her pout and shooing her out of the room.

_That wasn't very nice, Sherlock. She only wanted to comfort you. _

_She _looked at him, a sad, disapproving smile quirking the corners of her mouth up, arms crossed over her chest.

"I don't want her." He collapsed into his armchair, leg sprawled across one arm.

_No, but you **need**_ _her. Stop moping and get this done, for John's sake, for Mycroft's, for Britain's. Hell, do it in my memory. Just please stop this, Sherlock. Stop this now. I need you to **focus**._

_She_ slapped him. He almost convinced himself that he had felt a ghostly hand skim his face gently before reason blocked the sentimental reaction and forced his mind back onto the case.

Magnussen. Slimy, disgusting, cruel in the same way as a child bullies others, or burns ants with his magnifying glass.

He turned Sherlock's stomach.

"Sherl, won't you come to bed? It's cold without you." He stiffened at her pet name for him, loathing her whilst committing himself to his role as the doting boy friend.

"Of course. I was just thinking. I'll be right along now." He made no effort to leave the chair or even look at her, searching his mind palace for something elusive that had been hovering on the periphery of his consciousness for a number of days. Every time he had been close to letting it solidify, something had interrup-

"Sherl? Come one, you've barely slept. Let's go to bed."

She pulled him up roughly, pinching his bum as she pushed him out of the room.

_She_ winked at him, dissipating like smoke on the wind, leaving him again with a sense of longing, emptiness and abandonment.

He slept fitfully for the remainder of the night, tormented by scenes of Molly, bound and gagged, struggling against Moran and Moriarty, Molly crying as she was burned repeatedly, himself crying helplessly as he watched from the sides, unable to help her in any way.

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><p>So yeah I really would advise anyone who hasn't read The Curious Case of Miss Molly Hooper to read it, it will make this make more sense, since I will be referring back to it periodically.<p> 


	2. Made Keener By A Substitute

This plot makes me really sad, I don't know why I keep writing it. But it won't leave me alone! *sighs* On with the pain.

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><p>The next weeks seemed to both drag and pass in a blink.<p>

Every night, he pretended to rest, withdrawing deep into his mind palace until she was firmly in REM sleep, before stealing out of bed and lying prone on the sofa, waiting for _her_ to appear to him.

_She_ always did.

And every time, _she_ told him to be nicer to the poor girl hopelessly in love with him lying in his bed.

_She_ always told him to move past the crippling grief. John had managed without him for two years, so he sure as hell could.

In theory.

Every night ended the same, too.

Janine would come to him, force him back to bed and kiss him goodnight.

He let her, wishing it was _her_.

The days were spent taking every case, from ones to tens, whatever came his way, whilst filling the spaces between with hunting information about Magnussen.

At least he could rely on Mycroft's cooperation now.

He had been very useful.

As had Janine.

However, she was beginning to outlive her usefulness.

All he needed her for now was to get into the office.

_You need to give her a chance, Sherlock. _

"I can't."

_You __**must. **__Or, I shan't come back to you._

"No."

_Then so be it. _

_She _vanished from his sight, stubbornly refusing to return to the forefront of his mind palace no matter how he coaxed and pleaded with her.

He didn't care how foolish or childish he was being.

He hated having _her_ there. A testament of his weakness, of how he lost.

But he missed her when she wasn't.

Missed her more, that is.

He hated feeling so helpless.

Oh, his mind was still fully functioning, his deductions took a third of the time they had before Mo- Everything, and his body certainly wasn't going to give up on him any time soon.

His heart, however...

He thought that it might just be irreparable.

He didn't understand how _ordinary people _survived it, being enslaved to their baser instincts and desires.

He couldn't let himself become a slave to his baser desires.

He would not become like Moriarty.

Even if the type of people he would target would be the very scum he spent most of his time chasing anyway.

He'd be doing the world a favour anyway.

The memory of killing Moran, of the vicious, black pleasure he experienced as the bastard's life force had coated his hands as he straddled the body, blood soaking into his shirt and the sense of overwhelming power threatened to overcome him.

He felt sick.

Worse than sick.

He felt _unclean._

Undeserving of Molly's love.

He had killed a man and taken pleasure from watching the life drain from his eyes, knowing that Sebastian Moran _would not_ hurt anyone else.

No-one else would have to suffer as he suffered at the hands of that creature.

_I don't blame you, Sherlock. I never blamed you, and I_ **_told_**_ you that. _

Ah. His pitiful self loathing had drawn her out of her solitude.

He hated how he drank the sight of her in, _every time_ she appeared to him.

She had changed.

No longer in the pristine lab coat, hair scraped painfully off her face.

Stunning in the yellow dress from the wedding, but her hair curling delicately away from her face and down her back, moving slightly with a nonexistant breeze.

The rational part of his brain reminded him that it was his subconscious making the wind.

The - momentarily - more dominant part of his brain, reserved for _sentiment_ - the rational side again pushed forth, hissing the word derisively - cried out for her, stunning him in its insistence.

He needed her to be real.

Or he needed to be dead.

A frown marred _her_ beautiful features as she considered his thought.

_I don't think you do. Whatever happened to "Alone is what I have. Alone protects me"?_

"You happened. You. Bloody. Happened. I never asked for this! Any of it! All I ever wanted in life was to be either the world's best pirate, which Mycroft took from me, or to be not bored, by being the world's _only _and thus _best_ Consulting Detective.

"Is that so bad?"

_Of course not. I... I understand, Sherlock. But I cannot let you be dead. You mourned the loss of both Jim and Irene. Well, Irene isn't dead, so why reduce that number of intelligent, brilliant minds to psychopaths? Mycroft... You know he would be, if your parents hadn't brought him up with manners._

_She _giggled lightly, the sound more beautiful to him than any of Mozart's concertos. He smiled wryly.

"You have a point."

_You'll join me, one day. When it's time, not when you **think** you're ready._

_Her_ hand rested just shy of his face, so close he fantasised he could feel her heat spilling onto his icy face.

Since her... Passing... He just hadn't seemed able to warm up. Janine, whilst warm, wasn't _her__, _so he couldn't "cuddle" her.

He knew it was purely psychological.

The mechanics would be the same. He could, theoretically, take his arms, extend them a set distance from his body until they rested on her shoulders. Then her could push his arms down her back and pull her close, and stay there, accepting her and her heat.

Except he couldn't.

_You wouldn't be betraying my memory._

"I know that."

His eyes betrayed him, he could feel it.

Felt the emotion escape through his eyes, let them show _her, the one who counted,_ how much he loved her, and needed her, and bloody missed her.

_I know, my love. But she is in love with you! Or at least half way there._

"I know! But I don't... I _can't_! You are the one who counted, who always counted. I don't trust her, I can't trust anyone. You left me..."

_She_ Looked at him, hurt welling in her bottomless eyes.

_I didn't ask to die. When you "died", John didn't kill himself. When my brother died, his wife didn't kill herself. People die evrey day, Sherlock, and they are **missed** and they are **loved** by **someone** and you think you have the **right** to sit here night after night, **moping** and thinking about **suicide**? _

_News flash, you overgrown drama queen. _

_If they can do it, **you can bloody well do it.**_

_Her_ face seemed to glow with passion, eyes lit with restless, righteous energy as she continued to berate him for his idiocy.

He tuned her out, focussing on the way her hair seemed to crackle and bounce with electricity, the flush that stole up her throat and tinted her cheeks a youthful, _healthy_ pink, the way her eyes narrowed at him and flashed sparks when she realised he hadn't listened to a word she said.

He wanted her, in the basest possible way.

He needed her.

He loved her.

He wanted to drag her to him, bruise her lips with his insistent mouth, her hips with his punishing fingers, and just never let go.

He felt pathetic.

And yet, no one had noticed the change in him, not really. John assumed something was different because of Janine.

He hadn't realised that the change was Molly's fault. He hadn't even realised that _her_ pathetic crush was more than reciprocated.

Sherlock assumed it was because he saw her as the mousy, timid girl she had been when they first met.

Even after she had saved his life, no-one realised how very important she was to him.

Well. Except for Moran.

He groaned, dragging his hands roughly through his knotted hair, pulling a random file from the pile littered across his desk, opening it and staring blankly at Magnussen's face.

Cold, dead fish eyes stared back.

He shuddered in revulsion.

**Focus, Sherlock.**

He ran Magnussen through his mind, collecting every piece of evidence he had collected about him and scanning for a weakness.

The only one he could find was him.

Not that he would play along.

Oh no, he knew Magnussen wanted to _use_ him, to get to Mycroft, but what for exactly...

His phone beeped beside him, startling him slightly.

**_I have the files you need on the laptop. Do be a dear and let me know when you intend to have use of them? MH_**

The plan would have be set in motion, and soon.

He would have to ask for Molly's help when picking the ring though.

Not that anyone would know he asked her.

Nor would they care.

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><p>Okay so I am being fairly compliant with S3, I fully intend for John and Sherlock to go to Magnussen's and kill him, like in the series. But until then, I get free reign, right? :D<p>

Thanks again for the lovely reviews. (hint hint keep em coming, they keep me motivated, and motivation is one thing I severely lack atm)


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